Localities in New York have taken a beating this year due to the sluggish revenue growth, which is critical when crafting annual budgets.

ELIZABETHTOWN — A new report from the state comptroller’s office says slow or no revenue growth is making it difficult for municipalities to maintain services while keeping pace with rising fixed costs — including health care.

“New York’s municipal governments are seeing sales tax revenue growth slow and state aid remain essentially flat while they and school districts are coping with tax cap and tax freeze initiatives that limit growth in property taxes,” said Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli in a statement.

According to the report, local government spending growth has increased between 0.9 and 2 percent annually since 2010.

But localities have taken a beating this year due to sluggish revenue growth, which is critical when crafting annual budgets.

Local sales tax revenue growth statewide fell from 3.6 percent to 1.8 percent in the first nine months of 2016 from the same period a year earlier, according to the report.

Towns and villages rely on the property tax for approximately half of their revenues.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has long held up the cap, which took effect in 2012, as the long-needed antidote that has gotten the state’s ever-rising property taxes under control.

In recent years, the tax cap’s allowable levy growth factor has been less than 2 percent.

Pictured: Counties have highlighted how the costs of nine state mandates add up to the entire primary revenue source available to most counties, the property tax. The chart below provides New York Association of Counties’ estimate of the impact state mandates can have on counties.

Residents of jurisdictions that have stayed under the cap are supposed to be getting rebate checks, but that program has been marred by confusion and delayed checks, Essex County officials have said.

Local officials, while generally supportive of the cap, say the cap is seldom two percent once inflation is considered.

As such, they must choose between raising taxes or cutting services.

“Each year, it gets more and more difficult,” said Moriah Supervisor Tom Scozzafava.

Essex County is relatively insulated from the cap, said County Manager Dan Palmer, because of their five-year plan that has the county on a schedule of planned tax increases that override the legislation.

The 2017 budget saw a 3.75 percent levy increase.

Palmer said the Essex County Board of Supervisors has the foresight to avoid dipping into their fund balance as a cushion, a tempting-yet-risky decision that other counties in the state may struggle with.

“We’ve arrived at a financially stable position because of that,” Palmer said.

DiNapoli said as local governments continue to adapt to changing circumstances, his office will continue to support them with “training, analysis and guidance.”

Spending by school districts remained below 1 percent for three years starting in 2011, but ticked up at a higher rate in the last couple of years, when compared to counties, cities, towns, villages and fire districts, due to increases in state aid to schools, according to the report.

In 2017, 45 counties enacted budgets under the tax cap, according to the New York State Association of Counties.

“Unfortunately, 12 counties had extraordinary circumstances that required additional revenue to provide state program support.”

The organization on Monday highlighted the DiNapoli report and noted population loss as another issue facing localities.

From 2010 to 2015, 43 counties lost population.

“In upstate counties, this trend is extremely acute,” wrote NYSAC. “The demographic we are losing are young families and mobile professionals who are finding better opportunities in other states.”

With a loss of 2.1 percent in the past half-decade, the trend in Essex County mirrored the state average of 2 percent.

Clinton County fared slightly better with a population loss of 1 percent.